The population of elderly people, also referred to as seniors, is perhaps the fastest growing segment of the population in advanced societies. Their loss of physical and cognitive function requires help and support provided by governments, institutions and family. In turn, seniors want to live fulfilling, independent lives that they can afford. There is a time between full functionality and loss that requires dependent care that a senior can live independently and safely and within their means, without constant supervision, if adequate unobtrusive monitoring is available. The present device provides and reports such monitoring; it lays on the floor and detects a person or a person's motion, which may include a walk, a fall, their gait parameters, and traversal to locations out of sensor range. The device extends the caregiver universe for the senior, offers lower costs compared to the alternatives, can maintain the individual's data indefinitely to provide timely functional assessment, and provides a means to notify their caregivers when circumstances require.
Here are a few cases of the use of the device to infer a dangerous situation. By recognizing the entrance and exit of a given person into a specific room, the safety of the situation is inferred. For example, the system infers that a person enters a kitchen, even though there are no floor sensors in the kitchen, and turns on the stove. A stove sensor indicates the heated stove, and the carpet segment detects that the person has left the kitchen, clearly creating a possible hazard. In another case, the system infers that a person has entered the bathroom. The system keeps track of the characteristic of the bathroom visits such as time, and length of stay. An extended stay over the typical time length of stay in the bathroom can indicate a dangerous fall. The system can gently inform the circle of caregivers of that event, and previous discussions with the affected resident can lead to help. There are other similar scenarios that constitute a significant hazard to the resident, property and to life.
In application, the sensor array can identify motion caused by people and requires many resources to make its decisions. Whereas a single pad identifies a break-in through a window or other points of ingress in security applications. Furthermore, hospitals can benefit from detecting people leaving the bed or room. Therefore, a small pad that detects motion will be useful. Strategically placed pads can determine direction of motion using Cloud based interconnections.